Wanderers lose second straight in B.C.
Halifax falls 2-0 to Vancouver FC, heads home for April 27 opener
The Halifax Wanderers certainly hope it won’t take until the second week of June to post their first victory of the Canadian Premier League season.
The Wanderers dropped their second straight game to start the 2024 campaign on Thursday night, a 2-0 setback to Vancouver FC at Willoughby Community Park in Langley, B.C.
Last CPL season, their first victory didn’t come until June 10 after starting 2023 with two losses and six draws. The Wanderers – who had been on the west coast since the beginning of the month training before their season opener last Saturday against Pacific FC (a 1-0 loss) – now return to Halifax and will prep for their home opener April 27 against Atletico Ottawa.
“We have to put things in perspective,” Wanderers defender Dan Nimick said in a post-game news conference. “Last year, we started our first eight games without a win and we finished tied for second at the end of it. We can’t get ahead of ourselves.
“There’s talent in this group, we’re just as good as we were last year. We’ve added pieces so we’re better than last year, it just needs to start clicking. There’s a lot of belief, we just need to take this longer break to go back to the drawing board and come back stronger next Saturday.”
Vancouver opened the scoring on a lucky bounce in the first half as the Wanderers failed to clear a corner and the ball landed in the six-yard box for Rocco Romeo, who fired in his first goal.
Shortly after halftime, Vancouver’s Moses Dyer stripped the ball from Nimick and fired a shot that ricocheted off the post to Alejandro Diaz who buried the rebound for a 2-0 lead.
The Wanderers, who only won two of 14 away matches in 2023 and have now lost two straight on the road, failed to score in their B.C. odyssey.
“It’s been a long trip,” Nimick said. “Our goal was to get at least four points out of this trip and we weren’t able to do that.
“We spoke a lot in the off-season and in the pre-season about how to improve our away form. We did a longer pre-season out here to try and get something out of these games and get accustomed to being out here. We haven’t put out our best performance forward. It hasn’t worked.
“We went the whole season without losing two games in a row,” he continued. “That was one of our main goals last year and we spoke about it a lot this year. The first two games and we have already failed in that goal. It’s definitely a tough one to take. Guys are going to have to take a look at themselves, I have to look at myself and see what we can do to turn this season around. It’s a long season, it’s just the start. We know we have the talent within this group and we have the support behind in Halifax that we can do something special this year. We just have to start clicking on the field.”
The Wanderers managed to fire 14 shots against Vancouver but only four were on target.
Their best attempt came seconds before the final whistle when captain Andre Rampersad’s attempt rang off the crossbar.
But Nimick wasn’t impressed with his side’s effort on this night.
“In the Pacific game, we deserved more out of that game,” the secondyear defender said of the season opener. “I thought we had a good performance. We created chances, limited them to only one shot on target which happened to be their only goal and we weren’t able to put it in the back of the net.
“Today, I honestly don’t think we deserved anything out of this game. It wasn’t our best performance by myself and the rest of the guys. It wasn’t what we hoped for. It’s a long season and we still believe we will put our best foot performance. But it doesn’t matter if we don't get three points at the end of the day.”